HBO's 'Girls' like a younger, more awkward 'Sex and the City'

4:25 PM,
Apr. 14, 2012

Priducer Judd Apatow, center, poses with actresses, from left, Zosia Mamet, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham and Allison Williams pose at the premiere of the HBO original series "Girls," on April 4 in New York. The comedy premieres 9:30 p.m. Sunday on HBO.

Written by

Gary Levin
USA TODAY

They grew up watching "Sex and the City," but no one could mistake the girls of "Girls," HBO's new comedy (Sunday, 9:30 p.m.), for Carrie and her cohorts.

For one thing, there's all that fumbling, awkward sex. The hipster enclave of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, N.Y. And those humiliating setbacks as four post-college pals find career ambitions thwarted.

Yet "this is a show that couldn't exist without 'Sex and the City,'" says Lena Dunham, 25, its creator, star, executive producer and sometimes-writer and director. "Not just because of the place it carved for women on television, but also, these ...